Here, Romain Rolland chronicles the life of an artistic genius, in Tolstoyan depth and scope. Rolland gathers the whole thought of the nineteenth century to make the starting point for the hero's leap into the twentieth. Jean-Christophe Krafft, born, like Beethoven, to an alcoholic, exploitative father and a doting, chambermaid mother, is an exquisitely talented musician growing up in the German-occupied Rhineland. Through a vivid portrait of his hero's creative life, Rolland's work is a deeply personal examination of art's power to express moral truth and to combat disintegrating values.